Solomon Schechter
Solomon Schechter שניאור זלמן שכטר (December 7, 1847- November 19, 1915) was a Romanian born English and American rabbi, academic scholar, and educator, most famous for his roles as founder of Conserative Judaism President of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
Schechter came to England as a tutor of Claude Montefiore and won fame for his discoveries of important ancient manuscripts at the Cairo Geniza in 1896. He became the president of the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS)in New York in 1902 and soon became the leading voice of the emerging movement of Conservative Judaism as a middle ground between the staunch traditionalism of Orthodoxy and the liberalism of the Reform movement. In 1913, shortly after retiring form his post at JTS, Schechter formed the United Synagogue of America, later renamed as the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, which became for many decades the largest Jewish denomination in the US. He died in 1915.
Early life
Schechter was born in Focşani to a Jewish Romanian family adhering to the Chabad branch of Hasidic Judaism. Schechter received his early education from his father who was a shochet ("ritual slaughterer"). Reportedly, he learned to read Hebrew by age three, and by five mastered Chumash, the classic commentaries of the Hebrew Bible. He went to a yeshiva in Piatra Neamţ at age ten and 13 studied with one of the major Talmudic scholars, Rabbi Joseph Saul Nathanson of Lemberg.
In his twenties he went to the rabbinical college in Vienna, where he studied under the more modern Talmudic scholar Meir Friedmann. (WEISS) He also attended lectures on philosophy and other secular branches of learning in the University of Vienna. After receiving his rabbinical diploma, he moved on to undertake further studies at the Berlin Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums and at the University of Berlin in 1879. Three years later he was invited to England to be tutor of rabbinics to Claude Montefiore in London.
In 1885, his essay, "The Study of the Talmud," appeared in the Westminster Review. In 1887 he published his edition of Abot de-Rabbi Natan, and went on to wrote various essays and lectures in the Jewish Chronicle, Jewish Quarterly Review, Revue des Etudes Juives, and Monatsschrift. Some of these lectures and essays were afterward collected and published under the title Studies in Judaism (1896). In 1890 Schechter was elected lecturer in Talmud at the University of Cambridge, and in 1891 the horary degree of M.A. was conferred upon him.
In 1892 Schechter was elected reader in rabbinics, and in the following year he obtained the Worth shcolarship for the purpose of going to Italy to examine the Hebrew manuscripts in the great Italian libraries. He later made an exhaustive report on his research to the vice-chancellor of Cambridge University. In 1894 he delivered a series of theological lectures in University Hall, London; in 1895 he was appointed the first Gratz lecturer in Philadelphia. A series of his lectures were afterward published in J. Q. R. as "Some Aspects of Rabbinic Theology."
The Cairo Geniza
He won his greatest academic fame from his exposition of the papers of the Cairo Geniza, a repository of old and unused Hebrew documents stored in a Cairo synagogue. His work on this extraordinary collection of over 100,000 pages of rare Hebrew religious manuscripts and medieval Jewish texts revolutionized the study of medieval Judaism.
Initially, in 1896, Schechter forwarded collection of Geniza documents unopened to the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. Later, two Scottish sisters showed him some leaves from the collection that contained the Hebrew text of Ecclesiasticus, which had for centuries only been known in Greek and Latin translation. He quickly found support for a new expedition to Cairo, where he carefully selected for the University Library a trove three times the size of any other collection.
A string of prestigious academic appointments soon followed. In 1898 he was appointed external examiner in Victoria University, Manchester, England; in 1899, professor of Hebrew at University College, London; in 1900, curator of the Oriental Department of Cambridge University Library. He was also a member of the Board of Oriental Studies and the Board of Theological Studies, London University, England.
American Jewish community
Schechter's later life would be intimately bound up with that of the emerging movement of Conservative Judaism in the United States. In 1883, tensions between the modern and traditional branches of American Judaism were exacerbated after shellfish and other non-kosher dishes were served at a dinner honoring the first graduating class of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. The tensions reached the breaking point when Reform movment's adoption of a statement in 1885 which dismissed observance of the ritual commandments characterized the idea of the Jews as God's chosen people as "anachronistic."
In 1886, the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) was founded in New York City as a modern but more traditional alternative to the HUC. However, at the turn of the century, the JTS lacked a source of permanent funding and was ordaining on average no more than one rabbi per year.
In late 1901, Schechter was offered the presidency of the faculty of the JTS. After his arrival in New York he acted as editor of the Talmudic department of Jewish Encyclopedia. In 1902 he published the Midrash Hag-Gadol from a Yemen manuscript, and the Saadyana from manuscripts discovered in the Cairo Genizah. He contributed article to various non-Jewish dictionaries, encyclopedias, and journals as well. In 1904 he was appointed an honorary member of the senate of New York University and a director of the Educational Alliance. In 1905, he was invited to deliver a course of lectures in Jewish theology at Harvard University. He later became the chairman of the committee that edited the Jewish Publication Society of America Version of the Hebrew Bible.
Schechter served the JTS' president from 1902 to 1915, during which time he founded the United Synagogue of America, later renamed as the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. Under his leadership the Seminary obtained a distinguished faculty, and a dynamic momentum.
Schechter also became the leading voice of Conservative Judaism, which sought a middle ground between the Orthodox and Reform traditions. He emphasized the continuing centrality of Jewish law (halakha) in Jewish life, while at the same time encouraging the critical study of biblical an Talmudic texts and adopting a progressive attitude toward applying halakha in modern context. In his inaugural address as President of the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1902, he stated:
"Judaism is opposed to any number of things and says distinctly 'thou shalt not.' It permeates the whole of your life. It demands control over all of your actions, and interferes even with your menu. It sanctifies the seasons, and regulates your history, both in the past and in the future. Above all, it teaches that disobedience is the strength of sin. It insists upon the observance of both the spirit and of the letter; spirit without letter belongs to the species known to the mystics as 'nude souls,' nishmatim artilain, wandering about in the universe without balance and without consistency...In a word, Judaism is absolutely incompatible with the abandonment of the Torah."
On the other hand, Schechter emphasized that the Talmud itself shows that Jewish law is formed and evolves based on the behavior of the people in the context of their historical situation based on national consensus. Though criticized as a non-traditional viewpoint, Schechter argued that the rabbis consistently developed new and appropriate interpretations and applications of Jewish law as circumstances dictated.
In 1913 Schechter founded the United Synagogue of America as a body of Conservative Jewish synagogues with 23 cogregations. It later grew to more than 800 congregations and became the largest Jewish denomination in the world. Schechter was also an early advocate of Zionism. He died in 1915.
Legacy
Schechter's name is closely associated with three major events in the history of modern Judaism: the discoveries of the Cairo Geniza, the success of the Jewish Theological Seminary, and the tradition of Conservative Judaism. His findings at the Cairo Geniza created a major interest in the collection and study of medieval Jewish documents. He placed the JTS on an institutional footing strong enough to endure for over a century. Finally, he became the foremost personality of Conservative Judaism and is regarded as its founder. A network of Conservative Jewish day schools is named in his honor. There are several dozen Solomon Schechter Day Schools across the United States and Canada.
Schechter himself considered the [United Synagogue of America]] to be his greatest legacy, believing in a the need for a strong congregational base for the movement of Conservative Judaism. Through much of the twentieth century, the movement was the largest Jewish denomination in the United States, losing that status only recently to Reform Judaism.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Eisenberg, Azriel Louis. Fill a Blank Page; A Biography of Solomon Schechter. New York: United Synagogue Commission on Jewish Education, 1965. OCLC 1466909
- Fierstien, Robert E. A Century of Commitment: One Hundred Years of the Rabbinical Assembly. New York: The Assembly, 2000. ISBN 9780916219178
- ___________________, and Jonathan Waxman. Solomon Schechter in America: A Centennial Tribute. New York: Joint Convention Committee, 2002. OCLC 52858541
- Ginzberg, Louis, Israel Davidson, and Burton L. Visotzky. Genizah studies in memory of doctor Solomon Shechter. Jewish studies classics, 2/I-2/III. Piscataway NJ: Gorgias Press, 2003. ISBN 9781593330378
- Gurock, Jeffrey S. From Fluidity to Rigidity: The Religious Worlds of Conservative and Orthodox Jews in Twentieth Century America. David W. Belin lecture in American Jewish affairs, 7. Ann Arbor: Jean and Samuel Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, the University of Michigan, 1998. ISBN 9781881759065
External links
- Solomon Schechter, from Neil Gillman's book on Conservative Judaism
- Biography at the Jewish Virtual Library
- Louis Jacobs, From Cairo to Catholic Israel: Solomon Schechter, in The Jewish Religion: A Companion, OUP, 1995.
- Solomon Schechter Collection at the Jewish Theological Seminary
- Works by or about Solomon Schechter in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Solomon Schechter School of Greater Boston
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